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Cubicle Privacy
DarthDilbert writes "The NYTimes has a story about a noise canceling box for nosy cubicle neighbors. " Still no protection from mind readers. They know stuff.
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The article is more of a 2-page description of the company, with a one-paragraph sidenote about the product.
On another note, can I get one that fits in my PC and shuts up the godawful fan noise?
My other Sig is
And here comes lip-reading tech to bypass the noise-canceling box: http://www.intel.com/research/mrl/research/avcsr.h tm
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/30/technology/30hil lis.html?ex=1275105600&en=4a1c68b85a47519f&ei=5090 &partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Reg free link.
"Can you hear me Chief?"
"What did you say?"
"Chief, do you hear me?!"
"What are you saying, Smart?!"
There. I feel better gettin that out of my system.
My cubicle is my own little world and I feel free to do whatever in it. If someone asks me to be a little less loud, I judge their request on how often they are similarly noisy. The more noisy and more often, the less attention I pay to their complaints. If I have to hear them screaming at technicians in the field, they have to hear me every so often getting a call on my cellphone.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
I wad visiting a friend at his office once and I saw that his cube farm had actual sliding doors on their cubes, that can be closed to give people some privacy. The doors clamped onto the side of the walls and looked like the beveled, frosted glass you see on a shower door. You could still see the silhouette of someone in the cube, but it gave the occupant some sense of privacy. You could have the doors open when you don't mind people coming into your office to ask questions and slide it closed when you're busy and don't want to be disturbed. Ever since I saw that I've been looking around in google trying to find them so I can tell my boss that's what we need. So far I haven't been able to find them. All I've ever turned up in my searches are cheesy things like these which aren't nearly as nice. Has anyone else seen those nice sliding doors for cubicles and know who makes them?
"I start describing in great detail how this guy is peeing over my shoulder"
Didn't that mess with your keyboard and make your monitor kinda yellow?
The "Babble" technology that is discussed in this article is not noise canceling technology! Noise canceling technology uses soundwaves that are 180 degrees out of phase with the original waveform to cancel out the original soundwave.
From the article description, Babble simply 'scrambles' sound waves so that speech is unintelligible, but it doesn't actually make anything quieter (in fact, based on the description it probably increases the ambient noise, just like masking systems). This device is used for speech privacy (which can be useful for meeting HIPAA regs for example), not sound cancellation.
If you want to make things quieter, you'll have to resort to earplugs, sound-canceling headphones, or floor-ceiling partitions (ie walls).
1. When my cubicle neignbor (who gets lots of phonecalls) leaves his moblie phone on his desks and leaves for hours on end (especially when he sets the thing to vibrate and ring).
2. When the people who just failed to reach my cubicle neighbor on his mobile call his desktop phone (which has a really annoying ring tone) and fail to conclude that he is not in after the phone has been ringing for more than 10 seconds.
3. When those same people react to 2) by calling me to ask me if my cubicle neignbor is in or not.
4. When those same people ask me to take messages for him (usually about something he is selling or buying on ebay) after being told in no uncertain terms than "No, he is not in his cubicle".
5. When the guy in the next cubicle returns from his mysterious expedition, picks up his mobile to check his missed calls and starts to (really noisily) consume his food.
6. The people who come to visit my cubicle neighbor and throw half full coffee cups or leftovers into my trash can as they leave.
So you felt like advertising your terrible communication skills to the entire world instead of actually talking to the guy.
This is what I hate more than anything about IT: The unusually high number of catty, angry, little men who never say what's bothering them. That is, until they come into the office having a breakdown someday because they weren't man enough to deal with their problems when they were minor annoyances.
My advice: grow some balls and quit crying about such tiny little things in life.